Vladimir Putin Admits Russian Troops Have Been Active in Crimea

Russian president Vladimir Putin has admitted sending Russian troops into the Crimean Peninsula. Speaking on a question-and-answer television program, the president referred to the region as “New Russia” and maintained that Russian troops “stood behind Crimea’s self-defense forces,” according to The New York Times and Reuters.

Putin’s admission confirms what much of the international community had understood about the country’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and comes as diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and European nations were meeting in Geneva. Russia has also been accused of amassing troops on the Ukrainian border, and pro-Russian elements have overtaken security buildings in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday that three separatists were killed in skirmishes in the eastern part of the country, where a 10-day battle with pro-Russian fighters continues. Putin said charges that his regime was behind the events in east Ukraine were “rubbish,” and accused the Kiev government of ruining the country. “I hope that they are able to realize what a pit, what an abyss the current authorities are in and dragging the country into,” he said during the question-and-answer program.

Earlier this week, acting Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov asked the United Nations to intervene with a peacekeeping mission, according to the Washington Post. The U.N. Security Council met to discuss the Ukrainian situation on Sunday night, but reports from the meeting indicate that Western and Russian leaders spent most of it trading barbs and passing blame around.

Back in Russia, where the country’s annexation of Crimea has boosted Putin’s approval rating to more than 80 percent, the economy is faltering. Russian growth projections have been reduced, and the threat of Western sanctions looms heavy over an economy already plagued by stagflation (which, as it sounds, is a mix of stagnation and inflation).

Update (1:16 P.M.): N.S.A. whistle-blower Edward Snowden joined the Q&A session with Putin to ask whether or not Russia engaged in mass surveillance. “Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?” Snowden asked, via video link during the televised Q&A. “And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than their subjects, under surveillance?”

“Mr Snowden you are a former agent, a spy, I used to work for a intelligence service, we are going to talk the same language,” Putin replied, via translator. “Our agents are controlled by law. You have to get court permission to put an individual under surveillance. We don't have mass permission, and our law makes it impossible for that kind of mass permission to exist . . . We have to use technical means to respond to their crimes, including those of a terrorist nature, we do have some efforts like that. We don't have a mass control. I hope we don't do that.”

U.S. reaction to Snowden’s appearance has been predictably mixed. Some, like The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake, characterized the appearance as a propaganda exercise that rendered Snowden a “pawn” of the Putin regime. Others, like The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain, noted that Snowden’s questioning of Putin fits into what critics had earlier demanded of him. “First people were criticizing him for not questioning Putin - now he does it and they're criticizing him for that?” Hussain tweeted.